(14-03-2025, 08:39 AM)Ali Imran Wrote: When the people asked Jesus how to pray, Jesus taught them to pray directly to the Father, not to him.
So why do you pray to Jesus instead?
Jesus not only asked people to believe in Him and obey His commandments, but He also asked them to pray in His name. "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do ... If ye ask any thing in my name I will do it" (John 14:13-14). "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (15:7). Jesus even insisted, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me (14:6).
Now, the sticking point. Since you reject His deity, you must have felt He shouldn't be prayed to and worshipped. I'm afraid you didn't read scriptures in their entirety. In response to the above passages, His disciples not only prayed n Jesus' name (1Cor 5:4), but prayed to Christ (Acts 7:59). Jesus certainly intended that His name be invoked both before God and as God in prayer.
Jesus claimed to be God in several ways. He claimed equality with God in authority, worship, honor and prerogatives. Jesus accepted worship and claimed to be Yahweh of the OT by applying truths about Yahweh to Himself and by claiming to be the promised Messiah. Finally, Jesus claimed to be the only way to approach God in prayer, and requested prayer to Himself as God.
Often, in prayers or benedictions, Jesus's name is used alongside God's, as in "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2). The name of Jesus appears with equal status to God's - for example, the command to go and baptize "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt 28:19). This association is made at the end of 2Cor "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all" (13:14). If there's only one God, then these 3 must be equated.